Over the
decades The Golden State has taught us myriad ways to tarnish sound public
policy – from turning commonsense conservationism into extreme, radical
eco-craticism, to attempting to command the marketplace, making it less
affordable for all, to making mass transit a massive mess that is synonymous
with “boondoggle.”

Today’s dispatch
centers on the latter and should be an object lesson to the Port Authority of
Allegheny County and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in how not to promulgate
public transportation policy.

Of course,
that could be an arduous task for those in state government who, somehow, think
it has been a great policy to legislatively shake down and severely indebt the
state Turnpike Commission to fund mass transit.

Be that as
it may, The Wall Street Journal editorializes that a coronavirus-induced “budget crunch in
California is causing Democrats to re-examine some wasteful spending. This
includes, fiscal saints be praised, former Gov. Jerry Brown’s bullet train to
nowhere.”

The
Journal recounts how current Gov. Gavin Newsom last year “scaled back
progressive ambitions for a 500-mile high-speed train from Orange County to San
Francisco due to cost overruns, logistical headaches and legal challenges.”

The
state then decided to build a 171-mile “starter train” between Bakersfield and
Merced in the Central Valley.

But
now Democrats want to shorten the line even more — to the 120 miles of track
already under construction and run diesel trains instead of more expensive,
cleaner electric ones.

“Recall
that the train’s original purpose was to reduce carbon emissions,” that Journal
editorial reminds, adding how California’s 2008 bond initiative also said the
train “will not require operating subsidy.”

Cue
the laugh track.

The
Journal reports the state High-Speed Rail Authority “now projects the 171-mile
stretch would cost $20 billion to build and lose between $40 million and $90
million a year.”

But
that “assumes millions of people living in the Central Valley each year
will ride the train to Merced and then use commuter rail to connect to San
Jose.”

That’s
about as likely to happen as the Port Authority starting to count ridership on
Pittsburgh’s North Shore Connector, which the mass transit agency had to bribe
the public with “free” rides to ensure its half-billion price tag would not
have been to made to look more ridiculous than it already was.

That’s
also about as likely to happen as – as some pols have been giddily predicting –
massive development taking place along the coming Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
project between downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland.

And
rest assured, when such development doesn’t happen along the BRT line,
government will be rushing to subsidize with even more public dollars what the
marketplace has decreed to be a non-starter.

It
once was written that “We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we
have done was very foolish.”

Sad
to say, when it comes to public transportation projects, such foolishness is
spawned by that toxic combination of ignorant hubris and political
vaingloriousness to which government types too often wear blinders.

Wisdom
cannot grow and lessons cannot be learned by those with such tunnel vision.

]]>Coronavirus’ impact on Port Authority ridership and revenuehttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/coronavirus-impact-on-port-authority-ridership-and-revenue/
Wed, 03 Jun 2020 13:03:34 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12306Summary: Port Authority (PAAC) data shows falling transit ridership due to the coronavirus and economic shutdown. Despite a service reduction, PAAC did not furlough any employees and its preliminary budget for the next fiscal year envisions a higher headcount. Given … Continue reading →

]]>Summary: Port
Authority (PAAC) data shows falling transit ridership due to the coronavirus
and economic shutdown. Despite a service reduction, PAAC did not furlough any
employees and its preliminary budget for the next fiscal year envisions a
higher headcount. Given financial resources will be even more scarce in the new
fiscal year, steps must be taken to make the authority more cost-effective.

In mid-March as the economic
shutdown began and businesses closed, a stay-at-home and social-distancing
order was implemented, PAAC reduced weekday service by 25 percent. In April, PAAC limited the number of riders on
vehicles.

How was ridership
affected? PAAC’s performance metrics and
system data tool displays average ridership data on bus and light rail for
weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays back to January 2018. In March 2020, average weekday bus ridership
was 122,480. That was down 37 percent
from March 2019. April was even more
pronounced. Average weekday ridership
was 50,077, down 75 percent from April 2019.

Light rail fell at a similar
rate in March 2020. Average weekday
ridership was 16,643; the prior March it was 24,898, a 33 percent decline
year-over-year. April was far worse:
average weekday ridership was 2,183, down 92 percent from the prior April
average of 26,237.

Much, but not all, of PAAC’s
weekday service was restored on May 18.
Beginning in June additional operational changes including the
collection of cash fares on buses, a practice that was temporarily suspended,
will be made. If averages for April
increase by 5 percent in May and by 5 percent in June PAAC will be looking at average
ridership numbers of anywhere from 52 percent to 91 percent lower than the same
month in 2019.

What did the decline in
ridership mean for fare revenue collected from passengers? Information presented to PAAC’s finance
committee in April showed March 2020 passenger revenue (bus, light rail and
incline) was $5.9 million. This was $1.3
million (18 percent) lower than the March 2019 actual of $7.2 million. The impact on April’s revenues will be even
more significant given the steeper decrease in ridership and riders getting
refunds on passes.

By using 2018 National
Transit Database (NTD) values for fare revenues and unlinked trips by mode and
the ridership data from PAAC, it is estimated that April’s bus and light-rail
passenger revenue fell from $8.1 million to $2.1 million year-over-year. Similar losses for May ($6.2 million) and
June ($5.1 million) are estimated year-over-year. The changes in average
ridership through April and estimates for May and June along with estimated
revenue impacts are contained in tables at the end of this Brief.

Even with the decline in
passenger revenue and uncertainty about ridership going forward, PAAC’s
preliminary operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is higher
than the adopted budget for this year and adds employees.

Presented to the finance
committee in May, the budget would be $23.5 million higher than the budget for
FY 2019-20. It would have $104.2 million
in operating income, which would be $1.2 million lower than what was budgeted
for this year. Passenger revenue is
expected to be down by $1.2 million from $78.3 million to $77.1 million.

Total expenses would rise and
wages and salaries and pensions and employee benefits would be nearly equal at
$180 million each. Not only will PAAC
and its largest labor union have to agree to a new contract after the current
pact expires at the end of June but the preliminary budget anticipates 79 new
hires at a time when businesses are furloughing or laying off employees and are
operating far below normal staff levels.
Only three expense categories—materials and supplies, purchased services
and utilities—are projected to decline.

The subsidy portion could be
much different. That is due to the effects of the coronavirus on other
governments that provide PAAC’s subsidy but also a share of $25 billion in
federal transit infrastructure grants to urban and rural agencies from the
CARES Act.

The FTA awarded the money
based on existing transit formulas. It
did not distribute the money based on bus operating cost per revenue hour. The 2018 NTD report on the largest 50 transit
agencies shows just five topped PAAC’s $188.43.

State money could be affected
by the decrease in Pennsylvania Turnpike traffic and sales taxes. Allegheny
County levies on alcoholic drinks and vehicle rentals will most likely
drop. An annual grant from the Regional
Asset District (RAD) will decline as the RAD board announced in late May that
all grant recipients would see a 20 percent cut. PAAC received $225,000 per
month from January to April for a 2020 operating grant of $3 million. The monthly amount going forward would be
$180,000. County and RAD monies provide
the match for state dollars.

PAAC’s board was reformed in
2013 to have a mixture of state and county appointees. Now is the time for those appointees to make
it very clear that state and county revenue sources will be more limited and an
hurting and an increase in the PAAC budget or new employees is not realistic in
this time of uncertainty and high private sector unemployment. If additional
manpower is needed there is always contracting to outside vendors. Even the
state passed an interim budget that expires in November.

If the effects of the
business shutdown continue for some time, that could have a significant effect
on PAAC ridership. If businesses don’t
reopen or allow more people to work from home, if universities and the
Pittsburgh Public Schools don’t hold in-person classes and if sporting events
don’t resume, all that will have a serious impact on ridership and revenue,
meaning next year’s budget will have to be revisited.

As we have said for years, the Port Authority of Allegheny County is much too costly and inefficient. Now is the perfect time to examine all aspects of operations and move toward being a more cost-effective system to best serve the riders and taxpayers.

]]>Unintended consequences of ‘free’ mass transithttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/unintended-consequences-of-free-mass-transit/
Wed, 03 Jun 2020 11:15:44 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12313The Port Authority of Allegheny County is set to resume fare collections next week. They were suspended in late March as “social distancing” became one of the steps taken to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. But transit activists and advocates … Continue reading →

]]>The Port
Authority of Allegheny County is set to resume fare collections next week. They were
suspended in late March as “social distancing” became one of the steps taken to
mitigate the spread of coronavirus.

But transit
activists and advocates for the poor are urging the mass-transit agency to not
reinstate full fares. If the government has decreed there should be not
evictions or utility cutoffs during the pandemic, full fares should not be
restored either, goes the argument.

So, when
does the pandemic end? The county goes “green” this Friday. Is that the end?
Does it end when there are no more cases? That could be… never given
what we still don’t know about the coronavirus.

Some even
are urging that low-income riders be allowed to ride for free. After all, they
say, transit is as essential as housing and utilities, the P-G reports.

Some others even
have gone as far as to say public transit is a “basic right.” That would be
news to the Founders and Framers. But that’s an argument for another day.

So, why not
simply make mass transit free for not just “the poor” but for all – all the
time?

Simply put,
it has been considered a bad public policy idea for decades. Nonetheless, your
typical garden-variety “progressives” keep advocating for it.

Perhaps one
of the more recent succinct narratives came from a blog post from a noted
transit observer who goes by the moniker “Mean Green Cougar Red.” The name
might be unorthodox but his economic/public policy reasoning is spot-on.

In January
he detailed Houston’s experience with the free transit concept, citing the
below news account:

“After a comprehensive analysis by
Metropolitan Transit Authority staff, transit board members said removing fares
from the system actually would increase agency costs by creating a need for
more buses and operators, potentially to the tune of $170.6 million annually.

“’It is just not feasible to do free fares,’ Metro board member Jim Robinson
said, echoing others on the board and in the transit agency.

“Proponents argue transit use would skyrocket and reduce overall traffic
volumes if transit was free. Riding also would be easier, they say, because
buses and trains could open front and rear doors for boarding without the need
for users to stop and pay fares.

“Metro’s analysis concluded that
ridership would jump from 86 million trips a year to an estimated 117 million
if fares were eliminated altogether. Even offering free rides only during peak
hours could boost ridership to around 100 million, the study found.

“Those new riders, however, would come
at a big cost, said Julie Fernandez, the transit agency’s lead management
analyst. To handle the demand, Metro would need nearly 500 more vehicles,
mostly buses, and 415 new operators. Such a sizable jump in vehicles and
employees would require the agency to build a new bus operating facility to
complement the existing six bus depots.

“’Even preparing the transit system
for free rides would take four years,’ Fernandez said, adding, ‘it takes time
to order new buses.’

“The cost of going free prompted many
Metro board officials to conclude it was not likely.”

And that appears to be just the
beginning of the problems associated with making mass transit “free.”

Also noted the transit blogger:

A free fare
system “reduces revenues which, in turn, could lead to service cuts, it allows
buses and trains to become rolling hangouts for people who aren’t actually ‘going
anywhere’ and it deprives the system’s actual users of any sense of
stakeholdership:

“Even if it is mostly subsidized
through tax revenues, the fact that a fare is being collected gives transit’s
actual users a special sense of ownership of the system because they pay for
the service twice: once through taxes and again through fares.

“That, in turn, empowers them to hold
the agency accountable for things like shelters that are clean or buses that
run on time. Eliminate fares and the user becomes no more of an ‘owner’ of the
system than the public at large.

“This reduces or eliminates entirely
the rider’s sense of empowerment and leads to a lack of respect for riders’
needs. Service quality degrades and people are discouraged from using the
system.”

Far from being “free,” “free
transit’s” real costs, monetary and social, are exorbitant and, as is so
typical with “progressive” ideas, hurt the very people the concept is promoted
as helping the most.

Colin McNickle is communications and
marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

]]>The
Post-Gazette reports
that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has committed to providing $99.95
million to Pittsburgh’s $225 million Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project to run,
primarily, between Downtown and Oakland.

Sans a $27
million funding gap that the Port Authority of Allegheny County expects to be
filled with foundation grants, the FTA commitment represents the last piece of
the funding equation.

Now the
questions become if the Port Authority can build this project for the (latest) stated
amount and if the much-touted electric buses that are to serve the route will
prove to be as efficacious, mechanically and in operation, as billed.

But already
there have been problems with this project – problems that always seem to arise
with government transit initiatives.

The BRT began
life as a $195.5 million way to expedite travel between the Golden Triangle and
the robust Oakland business and university community.

Then that
cost swelled by more than $50 million to $249.9 million.

Then about
$25 million was lopped off the sticker price, money that originally was for
underground utility and storm sewer work on Fifth and Forbes avenues in the
Uptown district. As the P-G adroitly reminds:

“That work, along with
new sidewalks, street lights and repaving, had been a major selling point for
the project.”

Additionally, the BRT
project runs the risk of beginning operation, then having a now-delayed, city-led
road reconstruction along the route disrupt service.

Then there’s the issue
of those electric buses. The original plan was to have 25 of the vehicles that,
at about $1 million each, cost almost twice as much as conventional transit
buses.

A few of those buses now
are being tested. If they are up to the task remains to be seen.

How will they operate in
hot summer weather requiring further battery drain because of air conditioning?
The same goes for winter heating.

Will they be able to
command Pittsburgh’s hills?

How often will they have
to be charged? And for how long?

Current testing should
answer those questions. But, if they are not up to snuff, what happens then?

Make no mistake, the
decision to use buses instead of the incredibly costly and less efficient
light-rail system save tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

But there also are critical
BRT operations questions that must be addressed. The major one that comes to
mind will be the cost.

Will the Port Authority
attempt to use the BRT to finally slay bus operating costs that historically
have been out of whack with peer transit agencies around the country?

If so, what’s the plan?

It is cliched to say but
“time will tell” if the BRT project has been a wise use of public transit
dollars or if it is a boondoggle akin to the light-rail North Shore Connector
that supporters continue to defend, though with few statistics to back up their
accolades.

And that’s typically
part of the problem with public transit projects – carts before horses with
fancy sales pitches, sometimes loosey-goosey design and operational standards
and the First National Bank of John & Jane Q. Taxpayer forced to underwrite
it all.

There has to be a better
way.

Colin McNickle is
communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public
Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

]]>Post-corona poor public policieshttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/post-corona-poor-public-policies/
Fri, 29 May 2020 11:16:23 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12301Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf must be daft. Why else would he frame his continuing push to raise the state-mandated minimum wage by more than 100 percent as part of a “recovery framework” from the coronavirus pandemic? Once again, Wolf wants … Continue reading →

]]>Pennsylvania
Gov. Tom Wolf must
be daft. Why else would he frame his continuing push to raise the
state-mandated minimum wage by more than 100 percent as part of a “recovery
framework” from the coronavirus pandemic?

Once again,
Wolf wants an immediate increase from $7.25 hourly to $12 and, eventually, to
$15 an hour.

Allow us to
translate: The same governor who bankrupted the Keystone State economy by
arbitrarily shuttering some businesses and allowing others to stay open – in a
secret process, no less – now wants to force a massive increase in the cost of
those businesses to do business.

On what
planet?

But, but,
but, have no fear, Wolf retorts; there are state (i.e. taxpayer) dollars to
help businesses recover. So, “The State” forces businesses that it closed to
pay employees a far higher state-mandated wage, then, to cover the cost of that
abomination, it makes more state money available to cover those higher costs?

Sorry, but
none of this computes. In the warped world of government “beneficence,” perhaps
“The State” is attempting to compete with federal unemployment benefits that
are paying a premium to keep people on the dole.

But wait,
there’s more.

Wolf also
plans “investments” in the Pennsylvania agriculture industry.

No doubt
some of this additional bolus of taxpayer money will be used to cover for past
unsustainable business practices that have nothing to do with the coronavirus
pandemic.

And what’s
next, a state-ordered policy in which the government-knows-best crowd tells
farmers what crops to plant and sell, with that same government setting volumes
produced and prices charged?

It’s not
that far-fetched, considering government has paid farmers not to grow certain
crops.

More on the
farm angle later herein.

This
scrivener warned
many weeks ago against allowing public entities such as the Port Authority of
Allegheny County and the county Airport Authority to use the pandemic as an
excuse to secure “recovery dollars” that also would cover, and mask, past poor business
practices.

It’s part
and parcel to that concept of never allowing a public policy crisis to go to waste.

But there just
might be a silver lining in post-pandemic policy making if one proposed bill
gains traction in Harrisburg.

The measure,
House Bill 2547 and sponsored by Rep. Tim O’Neal, would close state stores,
privatize the wholesale liquor system and create private outlets for liquor.

A
similar bill was vetoed in 2015.

O’Neal
pitches the bill as being necessary because of how the Wolf administration shut
down state liquor stores during the height of the pandemic, leading to
multimillion-dollar losses and turning consumers into nothing less than
cross-state “bootleggers.”

But
even without the pandemic machinations, O’Neal’s rationale for getting the
commonwealth out of the liquor business is evergreen:

“The (Pennsylvania
Liquor Control Board) drives up costs while at the same time decreasing
selection and convenience,” O’Neal says. “But even more concerning is that the
current system forces Pennsylvanians, small businesses and local family
restaurants into doing business with a government-run monopoly that’s rife with
political favoritism.”

As O’Neal
reminds, Pennsylvania is one of two states in the country where all wholesale
and retail sales of wine and spirits remain state-controlled.

“The
state-controlled liquor monopoly was set up in 1939 to make it as inconvenient
as possible to purchase wine and spirits in Pennsylvania, and it’s clear that
is still its mission today.

“The time has
come to revisit ending this antiquated government system once and for all,” he
says.

No,
Representative, it’s long past time.

Back
to farming:

The
Tribune-Review reports that Keystone State “farmers and
ranchers who have lost revenue because of the covid-19 pandemic can apply for
federal aid to compensate for their losses.”

From a $16 billion federal fund, farmers and
producers are eligible for up to $250,000 per person or farm. Farm corporations
are eligible for up to $750,000.

That’s all well and good, we suppose. After
all, farmers have been hit very hard by the pandemic’s economy-killing
shutdown.

But the issue must be raised if farmers are
being further subsidized for unsustainable practices.

That would include receiving price supports to
mitigate over-production (be it for milk or pork or any other farm product),
which has the perverse effect of encouraging more over-production and makes the
cries even louder for price supports.

Public dollars are precious dollars. It’s bad
enough that in good times the public treasury is regularly raided to cover for
poor business behavior; using the coronavirus pandemic as a catch-all excuse to
bail out losses that had nothing to do with the virus is not acceptable.

Colin McNickle is communications and marketing
director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy
(cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

]]>Pennsylvania’s April employment situationhttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/pennsylvanias-april-employment-situation/
Thu, 28 May 2020 12:43:03 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12293Summary: Recently released employment statistics for April provide the first opportunity to gauge in detail the impact of the mandated coronavirus closings and economic activity slowdown on statewide employment. Anecdotal evidence, casual observations and the reports of unemployment claims have … Continue reading →

]]>Summary: Recently released employment statistics for April provide the first opportunity to gauge in detail the impact of the mandated coronavirus closings and economic activity slowdown on statewide employment. Anecdotal evidence, casual observations and the reports of unemployment claims have provided enough information to know the state as a whole and some areas of the state have been brutalized economically.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s March 19
announcement of mandatory closings and the follow-up detailed list of sectors
that were to close and those that could remain open or allowed employees to
work from home gives a perspective on what was to come. This Brief
reviews the April employment report, both household survey data and employer
survey data with analysis that offers a somewhat better understanding of what
had happened by the time of the April surveys. Bear in mind that the full
magnitude of the economic slowdown had not been felt by mid-April as the impact
of ordered closings continued into May as cases and deaths from the virus
mounted, albeit at very different rates per capita across the commonwealth’s 67
counties. These vastly different
experiences have become a source of great frustration with the so-called lockdown.

Unemployment Rate

Between mid-March and
mid-April when the household employment survey was taken, 1.43 million
Pennsylvanians filed unemployment clams—21.7 percent of the March count of the
state’s civilian labor force and 23.1 percent of the number of people working at
the beginning of March. Somewhat
surprisingly, the employment report from the state Department of Labor and
Industry (data also available at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website)
showed the number of unemployed rising to 976,000, up only 597,000 from the
March reading, notwithstanding the 1.4 million unemployment claims filed in the
30 days since the previous employment survey.

The reported unemployment rate
was 15.1 percent but would have been higher if 91,000 people had not left the
labor force. Then, too, the employment
decline for April compared to March was just 688,000, still far below the 1.4
million new claims. There are three possible
explanations for the large discrepancy:
One, the survey was unable to reach many of the recently unemployed and
thus undercounted the number out of work. Two, some of those who filed for
unemployment payments found a job before the April survey was taken—somewhat
unlikely given the inevitable massive drop in hiring during the period. Three,
for whatever reason, some unemployed that were surveyed declined to admit they
were out of work. In any case, the huge
gap in new claims and the reported new unemployed in April is a conundrum. And
the payout to claimants is a staggering sum each week.

Note that the claims have continued
to rise since mid-April, adding another half million by May 24, suggesting May’s
unemployment rate will be significantly higher than the April reading.

Payroll employment

What happened to
establishment payrolls—based on the employer survey—in April? By this time much
of the closing orders would have had time to take effect although secondary or
downstream effects of demand losses were still developing.

In this analysis, the impact
of the virus closings and related demand effects will be estimated by looking
at the difference in employment by sector between April 2019’s seasonally unadjusted
figures and the unadjusted April 2020 figures.
Seasonally adjusted data are not available for many of the sub-sectors
of major interest for this analysis, so the year-over-year differences in unadjusted
values will constitute a reasonable estimate of the coronavirus lockdown impact. Moreover, some of the virus’ effect had begun
in early March, so the change in jobs from March’s count to April’s would have
missed some of the impact.

The findings by sector are
very revealing. First, note that total private-sector jobs were down by 1.024
million, almost 20 percent of the April 2019 total, thus the decline (as
reported by employers surveyed ) far better mirrors the unemployment claims
rise than the household survey employment number which gauges the number of
people who say they are working. Meanwhile, government jobs by comparison were
down only 15,800, a scant 2.2 percent of the total government employment of
718,000 in April 2019.

Federal employment rose slightly as did the state’s job count. Local
government employment was down 19,500 or 4 percent with over half of that loss
in local k-12 education—presumably due to layoffs of support staff since
teachers and administration are still on the job.

Second, and very interestingly,
the state’s average weekly earnings for private-sector employees still on a
payroll rose over the year-earlier figure climbing from $894.06 to $947.40, an
increase of 6 percent. As will be shown, the largest job losses have occurred
in the some of the lowest paid sectors, so the average weekly pay went up. Of
course, with the huge number of job losses, total income in the state is down
and the taxes being paid are also much lower.

Goods producing sectors suffered widely different percentage declines in
jobs. Total goods producing jobs dropped
by 186,000 or 21.5 percent. Construction was hardest hit with the loss of
103,000 jobs, a 40 percent decline. Mining was down 17 percent but by only
4,800 jobs, and not all of the loss can be attributed to the virus as market
conditions have been a negative for a while.

Manufacturing employment
overall was off by 13.6 percent, 78,300 jobs. Durable goods saw a 57,000 job
reduction or 16.5 percent. Non-durable fared much better with a drop of only
21,000 or 9.2 percent. Each of the major
durable sectors had losses with primary metals and fabricated metals down 18
percent. Furniture and electrical machinery were most affected with 21 percent declines.
Transportation equipment along with computers and electronic equipment had losses
in the 13 percent range.

It is interesting that losses
in several durable goods sectors were not larger since they were on the
governor’s original March 20 close orders. Exemptions must have been granted or
the close orders changed.

Service-producing sectors have sustained the largest impact of the closing orders
due to huge cuts in travel and going out for dining or entertainment. Overall, April 2020 private service jobs fell
838,000 or 18.7 percent from the April 2019 count, but a few of the component
sectors were extremely hard hit.

The groups with the smallest
losses include general merchandise (7,600 jobs) 7.4 percent, gasoline stations
(3,900) 9.5 percent and grocery stores (9,700) 8 percent. Health and personal
care were in the middle range of losses at 14.5 percent (7,300 jobs).

It is in the leisure and hospitality
group that the most severe job losses have occurred. The sector as a whole saw jobs
fall by 345,800 or 60.2 percent. Hardest
hit in this group are the full-service restaurants where employment is down by
161,000 or 81.3 percent. Also seeing massive
declines were arts, recreation and entertainment where 60,400 jobs (63.7
percent) have disappeared. Accommodations shed 30,900 jobs or 53 percent while
limited service restaurants have seen jobs fall by 66,500 (41 percent). In
short, the leisure and hospitality group is being crushed by the lockdown.

Health and education services
employment, a vaunted work horse and reliable jobs growth group, has not
escaped the ravages of the coronavirus impacts.
Employment in the combined group has fallen by 147,400 or 11.2 percent. Among health sectors, ambulatory care
(doctors’ offices, dental offices, home health care) has seen the biggest drop
in jobs with a decline of 59,900 (17.4 percent). Social assistance (including childcare) shed
28,700 jobs (12.3 percent), while nursing home jobs are down by 11,800 (5.8
percent).

Education experienced a drop
of 40,000 jobs or 15.5 percent. This
group includes all private schools and public post-secondary education.

Finally, there’s the group
known as “other services.” This group includes repair and maintenance services,
personal and laundry services and a sub-grouping that includes religious organizations,
foundations, civic and professional organizations. From the April 2019 level to
April 2020, employment in this category fell by 80,500, a drop of 30 percent.
In the same time frame, repair and maintenance shed 8,400 jobs (15.8 percent).
Personal and laundry service employment plunged by 43,800, a massive 62 percent
loss. Most of this is in personal care jobs since laundry services were
exempted from the closing orders. The religious,
civic, professional, etc., grouping experienced a loss of 28,300 jobs, a 21
percent decline.

Conclusion

Bear in mind that the period
of plunging job counts being estimated here occurred before mid-April. And even
though many states are starting to re-open their economies, Pennsylvania is
moving very slowly, no doubt in part due to the very high infection and death
rates in the eastern part of the state.

But even with the partial and
tentative moves so far it is a virtual certainty that the May employment
surveys of households and establishments with payrolls that were conducted over
the middle part of the month will show further deterioration in the labor
markets and, by definition, the economy as well.
In Pennsylvania, state and local governments are going
to face drastic reductions in tax revenue. But there seems to be no sense of
urgency to cut spending or lay off workers. Why do the private sector and its
employees have to bear all the burden of the coronavirus impacts?

]]>Elephants in tubes & crises opportunistshttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/elephants-in-tubes-crises-opportunists/
Wed, 27 May 2020 10:27:53 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12291A new study about the cost-effectiveness of building a high-speed hyperloop system that would carry passengers between Pittsburgh and Columbus raises a whole host of public policy questions. The first one should be how government officials reached their conclusion in … Continue reading →

]]>A new
study about the cost-effectiveness of building a high-speed hyperloop system that would carry
passengers between Pittsburgh and Columbus raises a whole host of public policy
questions.

The first
one should be how government officials reached their conclusion in an equation
in which they admit the major variable – what it will cost to build the system
— cannot yet be defined.

There’s a
trick, eh?

As the
Post-Gazette reports it, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission has
concluded that what essentially would be a huge vacuum tube trip of 20 minutes
would cost $33 per passenger between the ‘Burg and Ohio’s capital city and $93
for the 56-minute trip between Pittsburgh and Chicago.

The travel
speed in the low-pressure tubes in which pods are propelled on a magnetic field
(and also touted as a way to transport cargo) would be 500 miles per hour. A
second study, by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, bestowed the
“feasibility” label on route between Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

But there’s
quite the elephant in the tube, so to speak:

While the
one feasibility study has projected the passenger fare, an official tells the
P-G that folks “still are trying to nail down” the cost of construction.

Well, there
is that.

Of course,
both the Columbus and Cleveland groups says the projects – which, by various
general estimates, would run in the tens of billions of dollars – would have to
be a combination of public and private dollars.

Well, of
course. That “public” financing component always presents itself as a
bottomless money pit for the developers of such projects.

Does the
“ability” to set ticket costs for a project that no one really knows how much
it would cost to build suggest a nod-nod, wink-wink system in which “government
dollars” – tax dollars, i.e. public money – will make up any funding
deficiencies?

That should
be considered a rhetorical question.

No doubt
many meat consumers in Greater Pittsburgh have been experiencing sticker shock with rising
prices during the coronavirus pandemic.

As Politico
reports it, “Supermarket customers are paying more for beef than they have in
decades … but at the same time, the companies that process the meat for sale
are paying farmers and ranchers staggeringly low prices for cattle.

“Now, the
Agriculture Department and prosecutors are investigating whether the
meatpacking industry is fixing or manipulating prices.”

Whether they
are or not will be determined, we suppose. And, yes, there has been a long
history in this industry of questionable market practices. But it’s a difficult
scenario to prove – especially when those closely aligned with the supposedly
shorted cattle farmers point to the current marketplace.

As Ed
Greiman, general manager of Upper Iowa Beef (and a former head of the Iowa
Cattlemen’s Association), told Politico, the price increases in meat coolers are
attributable to two hardly nefarious things:

First, meat
plants hit particularly hard by the coronavirus, have been running at lower
capacity.

Second, “farmers
and ranchers desperate to offload their cattle as they reach optimal weight for
slaughter are cutting prices so they won’t have to kill the animals without
selling them.”

But, continued
Greiman:

“Cattle are backing up because we
can’t run our plants fast enough. Nothing is functioning properly. We need to
be careful not to put blame on any one thing or part of the industry because we
can’t get these plants going.”

And there are additional market
complexities that grocery shoppers in Western Pennsylvania and elsewhere might
not know or, if they do, fully appreciate.

As Ted Schroeder, an agricultural economist at
Kansas State University, noted, rising consumer
prices and falling cattle prices are consistent with normal supply and demand.

“It’s Economics 101,” he told the
web news outlet. “There’s less meat around, but demand is still pretty strong.

“We’ve got plenty of cattle but
can’t get it through the system. We are pretty close to what I would expect to happen to wholesale and farm prices given the
bottleneck.”

If that’s “price-fixing” and/or “price
manipulation,” then the concept of supply and demand has been rendered moot.

Then again, when those who can’t
restrain themselves from never letting crises go to waste, market activity that
is consistent with normal supply and demand cannot, and must not, be tolerated.

Colin
McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute
for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

]]>A Memorial weekend declaration of independencehttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/a-memorial-weekend-declaration-of-independence/
Thu, 21 May 2020 18:18:54 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12289“Our natural, inalienable rights now are considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as this moment.” That was Ronald Reagan, decades ago. But his evergreen message … Continue reading →

]]>“Our
natural, inalienable rights now are considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has
never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as this moment.”

That was
Ronald Reagan, decades ago. But his evergreen message is particularly apropos
in this climate of using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to ride
roughshod over our basic freedoms.

Our
“leaders” in Pennsylvania, with little or no legislative deliberations, have
dangled supposed “safety” as they have conscripted our fundamental liberties. Never
mind that, as Benjamin Franklin so famously put it, “Those who would give
up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety.”

Those same
“leaders” have arbitrarily picked winners and losers, choosing what businesses
might survive – government-deemed “essential” — and what “non-essential” businesses
are to be left to rot on government-wilted vines.

However, you
can be sure that government will be quite quick to demand tax payments and raise
imposts on the “non-essentials” they stamped with this scarlet “N-E.” If
they can survive, that is.

Of course, when
called out, the government hides behind the same opaqueness in which the nuts
and bolts of its decision-making occurred.

At the same
time, the self-anointed new monarchs of government
threaten to use the power of “The State” to crush dissenters – those rising
numbers who would have the temerity and audacity to re-open their businesses to
feed themselves and their families, refusing to allow their government to
tighten the yoke of dependence around their necks like a hangman’s noose.

And for this,
such patriots of self-sufficiency and independence, those despised “rugged
individualists” who seek to be beholden to only their personal industry, have
been called “cowardly” by a governor whose constant message has been one of bumfuzzlement
and non sequiturs.

Those we
solemnly remember this Memorial Day weekend gave their last full measure for
the very freedom and liberties that government now has, by fiat, severely truncated
and openly traduced. By proxy, our heroes of liberty are mocked in their
graves.

Their
sacrifices deserve better. We deserve better. Sound public policy demands
better and that those under the people’s charge listen – or be prepared to be
cast aside as the people re-grasp their natural and inalienable rights.

Independence
Day must come early this year. We say it comes today.

More
notes on “The State” of things:

Gov. Tom
Wolf criticized
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for allowing a barber friend
to give him a haircut and a shave.

Barber shops
and hair salons remain closed by government order because of coronavirus.
(Hundreds are said to be joining forces to reopen on June 1 and take on “The
State.”) Roethlisberger grew out his
hair and beard, vowing not to tidy up until he felt he was once again throwing
NFL-caliber passes following arm surgery.

But the
barber’s attorney fought back, noting his client’s shop remains closed to the
public, he and Roethlisberger are friends and that no money exchanged hands.

How sad that
the barber, likely fearing a license-revocation directive from a
hissy-fit-throwing governor not knowing all the facts, had to secure the
service of an attorney to defend against such state-directed arbitrary and
capricious behavior.

But that’s
the sad climate in which we now live.

KDKA
Radio reports that the
City of Pittsburgh is considering a plan that would close full blocks of
streets in Shadyside, Lawrenceville, the South Side and the Golden Triangle to
allow restaurants to reopen this summer to serve socially distanced customers
in those streets.

The idea is
to allow the program as the city remains in the “yellow” phase of reopening
from the coronavirus pandemic. The better idea would be to allow those
restaurants to open in-house dining and take the safety precautions they know
will justify their reopening.

As
altruistic as such a street-closure program might sound, there must be a major
caution attached to it. For around the country, “progressives” have been
talking about permanently closing streets or heavily reducing
traffic on streets and roads whose use has been reduced and/or restricted
during the pandemic.

For
“progressives,” there’s nothing quite like using a crisis to engage in social
re-engineering. Whether Pittsburgh’s self-described “progressive” mayor Bill
Peduto can resist the temptation to follow suit remains doubtful.

Colin
McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute
for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

]]>Estimating lost turnpike revenues from virus lockdownhttps://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/estimating-lost-turnpike-revenues-from-virus-lockdown/
Thu, 21 May 2020 13:09:22 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12285Summary: As the coronavirus-mandated lockdown enters its third month, it is quite clear that revenue losses for state and local governments have been enormous and will continue to fall well short of what was expected for some time to come. … Continue reading →

]]>Summary: As the coronavirus-mandated lockdown enters its third month, it is quite clear that revenue losses for state and local governments have been enormous and will continue to fall well short of what was expected for some time to come. Previous Briefs, (Vol. 20, Nos. 14 and 16), looked at the estimated revenue losses in the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. This Brief examines the potential loss of revenue at the Pennsylvania Turnpike resulting from the sharp drop in traffic due to the economic and travel restraints imposed by the state.

Keep in mind that toll
revenue from the turnpike is used not only for the state Turnpike Commission’s expenses
but is also being used to fund mass transit across the state. The commission has been borrowing huge
amounts of money against toll revenues to meet the legislatively mandated payments
to the PA Department of Transportation (PennDOT).

For the past several years the
annual payment owed is $450 million (of which $400 million goes to mass transit
and the remainder to the multimodal transportation fund) per year until 2022 when the payments dip to $50 million until
2057 (see Policy Brief Vol. 12, No. 5 for details).

In early May, the Turnpike Commission
requested a postponement of its scheduled July payment of $112.5 million to
PennDOT in wake of a “sharp decline in traffic due to virus restrictions.” How much of a sharp decline is unknown since
traffic data on the turnpike’s website are available only through February 2020
(as of this writing). However, by using monthly
commission data from the last three years (2017-2019), the traffic volume and
toll revenue over the March-to-June period that would have occurred absent the
lockdown orders have been estimated for cars (Class 1) and for commercial
traffic (Classes 2-9). The analysis
continues with estimates of the traffic and revenue that are likely during the
shutdown and reopening months of March through June. The projected revenue
shortfall is the difference between these two estimates.

All traffic data are taken from
the commission’s website and include the count of vehicles exiting the mainline
system (toll 76, 276 and 476). The 2018-20
data did not include figures from the toll spurs—576, 43, 66 or 60—so those
exits were eliminated from the 2017 data set for consistency. It is worth noting that about 50 percent of
the turnpike’s Class 1 traffic count and 33 percent of the Class 2-9 traffic takes
place in District 4, the southeast counties of the state which have been
hardest hit by the virus.

Class 1 passenger vehicles

In early May turnpike
officials noted a “sharp decline” in traffic—presumably for March and April. But how sharp? The state’s shutdown rules eased up in early
May for the northern and central counties.
But the mainline turnpike doesn’t go through those areas. Southwestern counties, where the mainline
road does travel, had restrictions loosened in mid-May. But the bulk of traffic runs through the
Philadelphia area, which remains on lockdown perhaps through the end of
May.

From 2017 to 2019, January’s
traffic count was relatively stable ranging from 10.11 million cars per month in
2018 to 10.05 million in 2019. In 2020,
January’s traffic count came in at 10.22 million, 1.7 percent above 2019’s
level. February’s count rose from 9.35
million in 2017 to 9.58 million in 2018.
February 2020’s traffic of 9.94 million was up 4.5 percent over 2019’s
count (9.51 million). The average
increase over the first two months is 3.1 percent. Some of 2020’s increase could be attributed
to a mild winter. But some could be
attributed to a strong national economy before the coronavirus arrived.

To estimate the traffic for March
through June of this year if there had been no lockdown, a 2 percent year-over-year
growth rate is assumed. The reason for a
lower rate than January and February is that from 2017 to 2019 the traffic
counts for each forecast month had been relatively unchanged from the year-earlier
figure, especially in April and May with a slight decrease in June. The following table shows the actual monthly
counts and the estimated counts (in italics).

Class 1 traffic counts (millions)

March

April

May

June

2017

10.73

11.42

12.06

12.24

2018

10.78

11.43

12.14

12.28

2019

11.15

11.42

12.10

11.92

2020 (est. w/o lockdown)

11.37

11.64

12.35

12.16

The Turnpike Commission’s
2019 Comprehensive Annual Report calculates the gross fare revenue per vehicle
transaction. As is well known, the commission
has raised toll rates by 6 percent (both cash and EZ-Pass) each year from
2016-2020. The gross fare revenue per Class
1 vehicle transaction from 2016 through 2019 was as follows: $3.32, $3.56,
$3.77 and $4.04. The average annual
increases during this time were 6.8 percent.
Using this percentage increase to estimate 2020’s gross fare revenue per
Class 1 vehicle gives $4.31. With this
value and the estimated traffic count in the above table, estimated monthly
revenues from mainline turnpike tolls for each month are calculated.

Since the lockdown commenced,
leisure travel has been way off, if not close to zero, as unnecessary travel
was prohibited. However, essential
personnel were allowed to travel and people were allowed necessary travel to
check on relatives or to gather supplies.
Some may have used the mainline turnpike to do so.

Since the lockdown began
mid-March, we will assume a 50 percent reduction in activity for that month but
a 70 percent reduction (30 percent usage) for both April and May. For June, we will use a 40 percent usage rate
as the lockdown will most likely start to ease restrictions and people will
begin summer travel. These reductions
will be used to approximate the revenues received on the mainline turnpike
while on lockdown.

Class 1 monthly revenues (millions)

March

April

May

June

2017

$38.19

$40.65

$42.92

$43.56

2018

$40.63

$43.10

$45.77

$46.28

2019

$45.03

$46.12

$48.90

$48.15

2020 (est. w/o lockdown)

$49.04

$50.23

$53.25

$52.43

Revenue projections with lockdown

$24.52

$15.07

$15.98

$20.97

Lost revenue due to lockdown

$24.52

$35.16

$37.27

$31.46

As the table above shows, the
loss of revenue is estimated to be about $128.41 million over the mid-March
through June period. Of course, actual losses will depend on how fast traffic
returns to the turnpike as the lockdown eases.
Bear in mind that even in the “yellow phase” unnecessary travel is still
not encouraged. Thus, it is unlikely
that the road’s usage will return to normal until the state enters the “green
phase.” Even at that, it may be a while before
people feel comfortable enough to travel for leisure. It likely will take perhaps as much as a
couple of months before passenger vehicle counts return to normal levels, and thus
the revenue shortfall from what had been expected will likely persist.

Commercial vehicles

As the push for supplies and
online shopping picked up during the lockdown the demand for commercial
vehicles to transport these products increased.
However, since construction and most manufacturing were curtailed, as
were car sales, furniture sales and other retail shopping outlets, there was a
drop in the transport of items related to these industries.

Commercial traffic was up 2
percent each month for both January and February over last year’s counts. In January 2020, 1.88 million commercial
vehicles exited the mainline turnpike compared to 1.84 million in 2019. For February 2020, 1.74 million commercial
vehicles exited compared to 1.71 million in 2019.

For estimations of commercial
traffic, a 2 percent year-over-year growth rate is used for the months of March
through June. The 2017 through 2019
monthly data and the 2020 estimates are shown in the table below.

Commercial traffic
counts (millions)

March

April

May

June

2017

1.80

1.83

2.03

2.21

2018

1.85

1.91

2.12

2.08

2019

1.91

2.27

2.16

2.05

2020 (est. w/o lockdown)

1.95

2.31

2.20

2.09

Looking at the past four
years of gross fare revenue per vehicle transaction for commercial traffic
(2016-2019) shows the following amounts: $15.51, $16.38, $17.38 and
$18.85. The average annual increase was
6.7 percent. Using this percentage as the
expected 2020 increase over 2019’s gross fare revenue per commercial vehicle
transaction places the 2020 gross fare receipt per vehicle at $20.12.

Note that different classes
of commercial vehicles are assessed different tolls. The assumption is that the
percentage decline in commercial traffic affects all classes equally. The following table shows the estimated
monthly revenues from 2017 through 2020 for the four months.

Commercial traffic monthly revenues (millions)

March

April

May

June

2017

$29.53

$29.98

$33.25

$36.28

2018

$32.09

$33.21

$36.85

$36.11

2019

$35.96

$42.70

$40.67

$38.59

2020 (est. w/o lockdown)

$39.18

$46.52

$44.31

$42.05

Revenue projections with lockdown

$31.34

$32.57

$31.02

$33.64

Lost revenue due to lockdown

$7.84

$13.96

$13.29

$8.41

The table above shows the
estimated monthly revenues for March through June 2020. The estimates of turnpike usage as a
percentage of what it would have been with no lockdown will vary by month. For March and June traffic counts are placed
at 80 percent of the no-lockdown amount; for the harder hit months of April and
May, the estimate is 70 percent. For the
four-month period, the toll revenue is estimated to be down by $43.50 million owing
to the decline in commercial vehicle traffic.

The total loss over these
four months from both classes of vehicle is estimated to be $171.91
million. In 2019 the net fares for the
year were $1.33 billion or about $110.59 million per month. Our estimate amounts to a loss of about a
month and a half of revenue.

To reiterate, the losses are
predicated on a shutdown lasting from mid-March through June. If the state enters the “green phase” sooner
and people have the confidence to travel again, then the estimated losses could
be lower.

That confidence is going to
be key. People travel when they not only
feel safe medically, but also when they feel financially sound. With more than 1.8 million-plus
Pennsylvanians having filed for unemployment compensation and others waiting to
see if their jobs are going to be secure going forward, that could take some
time causing the weakness in traffic counts and revenues to linger well into
the summer.

Recommendation

While the federal government
is going to be sending money to state governments to assist during this
pandemic, it’s unlikely that they will cover all losses. What can the Turnpike Commission do going
forward?

First and foremost, the Legislature
needs to remove the Act 44 mandated payments to PennDOT. To make these payments, the Turnpike Commission
has been borrowing money heavily and has seen its debt load explode over the
last decade.

In 2010 the agency had $5.1
billion in mainline outstanding debt. By 2019 that amount more than doubled to
$12.4 billion with a large share of the increase due to required payments to
PennDOT. Total debt outstanding,
including oil franchise tax and motor license debts, stood at $13.92 billion. On a per vehicle basis mainline debt ballooned
from $26.88 in 2010 to $57.57 in 2019.

The pandemic has dramatically
exposed the ill-conceived reliance on toll revenues to fund mass transit. The estimated loss of $158.56 million will
hurt the Turnpike Commission’s ability to make payments on current mainline
debt (a $725.6 million payment in 2019).

The longer the pandemic
lingers, and Pennsylvania remains in lockdown—even if modified—and the economy fails
to rebound quickly the larger these losses will be.

If nothing else, it could
hamper the agency’s ability to borrow money in the future. The more toll revenue that needs to be used
for debt repayment, the less that will be available for other needs such as
maintenance and operations, which are very expensive.

The state needs to end the
lockdown quickly so that economic activity can begin to return to the pre-virus
level.

]]>Awaiting PNC’s payback & Wolf’s ‘transparency’https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/awaiting-pncs-payback-wolfs-transparency/
Wed, 20 May 2020 10:54:35 +0000https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/?p=12283There’s a curious little nugget in a Post-Gazette story about PNC Financial Services Group now being flush with cash. Or flusher than it typically has been, that is. The banking giant recently shed its stake in Blackrock Inc., a behemoth … Continue reading →

]]>There’s a
curious little nugget
in a Post-Gazette story about PNC Financial Services Group now being flush with
cash. Or flusher than it typically has been, that is.

The banking
giant recently shed its stake in Blackrock Inc., a behemoth money manager. The
sales price was $14.4 billion. That’s “billion” with a behemoth “B.”
After taxes, PNC’s take is expected to be about $11 billion. It wasn’t a bad
day at the transaction window.

PNC more
than intimates that, post-coronavirus pandemic, it might just be in acquisition
mode.

First off, however,
it might be more than a nice gesture for PNC to pay back the public the $48
million in public subsidies it accepted to build a new skyscraper in
Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle a decade-plus ago.

PNC was
flush with cash then, too. It could have paid for the new office building
itself. Or, if it didn’t have enough petty cash around, it could have – and should
have — gotten a loan from itself.

You can
almost hear the loan officer now: “We’ll need two months of bank statements,
checking and savings and, oh, yes, the driver’s licenses and W2s of
every employee. Oh, never mind – we have all that on file.”

Ahem.

Be that as
it may, one of the many banking targets that might be in PNC’s viewfinder,
reportedly, is none other than Pittsburgh’s own FNB Corp., aka First National
Bank.

Now, that’s
the very same FNB that is the signed, sealed and delivered primary tenant in-waiting
to anchor a new skyscraper in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ billion-dollar
redevelopment of the former Civic Arena site.

So, what
happens to that deal if PNC subsumes rising competitor FNB?

Those web
spinners along the
swampy banks of the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg just keep spinning away.

Spotlight PA
reports that as the heat intensified for the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf to
shine more sunlight on the much-derided waiver process that allowed – or denied
– businesses to operate during the coronavirus pandemic, Wolf himself sent
emails to business that had applied for waivers warning that third parties were
seeking private information.

Ah, that
would be those dastardly third parties seeking to inform the public of the
public’s business that their government has worked overtime to hide.

From the
email bearing the governor’s signature, which went to every one of the 43,000
waiver applicants, according to the reporting consortium:

“In many cases, these
requests include information that appear to be proprietary or even personal. Nevertheless,
various entities … continue to press the administration to disclose this information.”

It mirrors the rationale
Wolf used when he refused to comply with a state Senate subpoena seeking the
same transparency, Spotlight PA reminds.

But as the reporting
consortium further notes, personal and/or proprietary information is redacted under
the state public records act.

Nonetheless, the state
Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), which oversaw the
waiver program, attempted to frame the emails as a caution to applicants to
protect their privacy.

That’s a stretch.

If the governor is ignorant of the
redaction fact, that’s one problem. But if he’s not and was purposely
misrepresenting the situation, that’s quite another.

And to what end? Was it an attempt to
tamp down waiver requests? Was it an attempt to somehow leverage the business
community to lash out at media? To somehow shame media?

And this revelation fast on the heels
that, just prior to the Wolf administration releasing a list of those granted
waivers, some waiver recipients were, without explanation, stripped of the
government’s blessing to operate. Their initial waivers were scrubbed from any
listing the public had demanded. That’s called “a slick government trick.”

Prosecution of sound public policy
demands transparency. The game-playing in which the Wolf administration appears
to have engaged fails to meet that standard.

Colin McNickle is
communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public
Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).